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Top 5 phones under £100
5 minute read
There’s nothing quite like unwrapping a snazzy new phone. And guess what? You don’t need to break the bank to do it.
One of our wondrous members, wsjudd, is here to tell you what he thinks are the top 5 phones you could snap up for under £100. Get in.
wsjudd’s Top 5 phones under £100
Pretty much everyone has gotten used to paying hundreds of pounds for smartphones these days, whether that’s all upfront or spread out over a 24-month contract. But it turns out that you don’t need to spend anywhere near that much to get a phone that would have been flagship-grade just a few years back.
giffgaff is doing their bit, with a good range of cheap SIM-free smartphones that cost under £100.
We’ve rounded up four budget smartphones in this price bracket - plus one feature phone - that will do what you need without costing the Earth.
5. Xiaomi Redmi 9AT
The Xiaomi Redmi 9AT isn’t the latest phone, having been released in 2020, but its high-end specs and neatly discounted price make it a fine contender.
The 9AT has some rare features at this price point, including a dual-SIM design that lets you use local SIMs when travelling while still being reachable on your primary number. The 6.5-inch IPS screen has the now traditional teardrop design and tall aspect ratio, allowing plenty of tweets, photos or column inches to fill your eyeballs, while the octa-core MediaTek chipset remains a competitive option.
32GB of storage and 2GB of RAM are about standard for this price point, while a 5000mAh battery is on the bigger side, offering increased longevity. On the camera front, a single 13-megapixel camera will get the job done, even if multiple rear cameras are very much the trend these days.
Any drawbacks?
There’s no NFC, which is a bummer for fans of contactless payments, and wireless charging is also unsupported. Regardless though, this is still a great phone for the money.
4. Nokia 105
Next up is the Nokia 105. This feature phone won’t run apps, making it a non-starter for some, but if you only need to make calls and occasionally text, this is a decent option at a very affordable price.
Like older Nokias, the simple design and internals mean a longer battery life and little to go wrong - plus you get a colour screen.
There’s an FM radio when 3.5mm headphones are connected, plus Snake, Tetris and a few more worthwhile games pre-loaded. It’s worth considering, but given the low price of new smartphones, it doesn’t quite win out on the features per pound metric.
3. Nokia C21 Plus
Nokia also makes the third option on our list, the C21 Plus. This offers a 6.5-inch IPS screen and a clean, relatively up-to-date operating system: Android 11 (just two versions behind the latest release).
As you might have guessed, this is a much newer phone than the Nokia 105 or the Redmi 9AT, and as such, has a more modern rear camera setup with a 13-megapixel main shooter assisted by a 2-megapixel depth sensor. This should result in better photos across the board.
Once again, NFC is disappointingly not included, but you do get 32GB of expandable storage and 2GB of RAM - about the bare minimum you’d expect on a modern Android smartphone. One nicety is a rear-mounted fingerprint reader, which is convenient to use and outperforms the sub-screen fingerprint reader in my (considerably more expensive) Pixel 6.
Altogether, a great option - but not quite the best in my opinion. Read on!
2. Apple iPhone 8 (Refurbished)
Of course, you’re not limited to brand-new models if you’re shopping on a budget. Going for a refurbished phone can be a great choice too, and one that just sneaks in under our £100 limit is a classic: the iPhone 8.
Yup, you can get an iPhone for two figures now, at least if you get it refurbished from the fine folks at the giffgaff pre-loved phone mine (not its official name). This model comes with ‘noticeable wear and tear’, but is promised to run beautifully - and you’re unlikely to notice anything once it’s placed in a case anyway.
This 2017-era iPhone is the oldest entry on this list, but Apple’s famously long support period means you can still update to iOS 16.1, the latest version, and you get niceties like Apple Pay and iMessage. If you prefer the old-school iPhone design language, with the home button and non-notched screen, this is an incredible pick.
1. Motorola Moto G22
The Moto G22 is a recent release, having launched in spring 2022, and as such, it benefits from a newer version of Android (12) and an impressive quad-sensor rear camera system. This includes a 50-megapixel main shooter, 8-megapixel ultrawide, 2-megapixel macro camera and 2-megapixel depth sensor.
Incredibly, the 6.5-inch screen offers a fluid 90Hz refresh rate - better than many flagships from just a few years ago - while storage space is a comfy 64GB with 4GB of RAM, allowing you to keep multiple apps in memory at once. It’s a smart, modern design that puts many older phones to shame, and is well worth picking up at its sub-£100 price point.
Given the balance of specs and features, and Motorola’s long-term domination of the budget category, I’m happy to call this the best sub-£100 smartphone as of the time of writing. And if you find a better one - let me know.
Wrapping up
OK, that’s all we’ve got time for this time! I hope you found some great candidates for your budget.
Take a peek at our full range of SIM-free smartphones today and grab yourself a bargain.
Thumbnail image credit: Oleg Magni from Pexels
